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A No-Nonsense Science Visionary

A No-Nonsense Science Visionary

PROFILE: Isis CEO Stanley Crooke Overcame a Troubled Childhood To Lead the Charge Into a New Realm of Medicine





BY MARION WEBB

Senior Staff Writer

hen Guillermo Vasquez, an Isis Pharmaceuticals Inc. scientist, speaks of his employer, it’s with great deference.

Thirteen years ago, Vasquez made $4.75 an hour working as a busboy at the La Costa Resort and Spa in Carlsbad when Isis CEO Dr. Stanley Crooke opened Isis’ door to him.

Vasquez, an immigrant from Mexico City, never dreamed of playing a pivotal role in the intricate world of antisense drug development. An unskilled worker, Vasquez began his career at Isis by doing grunt work. He washed glassware, delivered the mail, ordered chemicals and watched as the scientists went about their research.

Back in 1990, Isis was still small enough for everyone to know everyone. So when Vasquez showed an interest in learning the science, the researchers were glad to teach him the basics. He supplemented their teachings with night college courses.

All the while, Crooke kept a watchful eye on Vasquez. He promoted him when it was merited and once offered to pay the repair bill when Vasquez’s car was hit by a drunken driver. It took many years for him to work up to a level where college graduates often got started at Isis. But his persistence and labor paid off.

Crooke says he believes in giving people, especially the underprivileged, the opportunity to move up in life. But he’s adamant in not handing out free rides.

“I believe that you pay for everything in life,” Crooke says during a recent interview at Isis’ headquarters. “If you’re lucky, you pay for it only once. But there is no free ride.”

Crooke prides himself in creating an intense workplace. From his employees, he demands nothing less than excellence. Those thinking about retirement need not apply.

In return, he says, people can expect to work in a fair and honest environment that keeps an open mind for new ideas, no matter how unconventional.

The concept of antisense itself is radical, he says. Those who work at Isis share his dream of perfecting a powerful new class of drugs.

Crooke, who is described as a visionary by his peers, has seen repeated disappointments. Some critics have described antisense as “nonsense” and worse. But Crooke just shrugs off the jabs from nonbelievers.

Antisense drugs, named after the “antisense” strand in the DNA’s two-stranded double helix structure, has yet to make a breakthrough in the drug world. But industry insiders say if anyone will pierce that ceiling, it’ll be Crooke.

Leader Of The Pack

Isis is the clear leader in antisense with 13 drugs in development targeting diseases ranging from cancer and rheumatoid arthritis to hepatitis C and Crohn’s disease.

One of Crooke’s richest research deals, valued at up to $400 million, is with Eli Lilly for a lung cancer drug now in late-stage trials.

But Isis also boasts partnerships with other heavyweights, including Amgen Inc., Johnson & Johnson Co. and Merck.

Crooke insists the dark days of 1999, when Isis’ long-awaited drug for Crohn’s disease failed to show success in clinical trials followed by massive layoffs are behind him.

That doesn’t mean there won’t be setbacks, he says, but he insists the worst is over.

Crooke, who grew up in Indianapolis not knowing his father and under difficult circumstances, says he feels “extraordinarily fortunate” in what he’s achieved thus far, especially considering he experienced a childhood in which he was often hungry and angry at the world.

“I felt that a lot of what I saw was unfair, and it made me angry and it made me rebellious,” he says.

He spent his high school years avoiding studying, working a lot of hours and playing basketball like most Indiana boys.

In his office, Crooke shows off two carefully stored autographed basketballs and a hoop.

At age 17, Crooke married his childhood sweetheart. After graduating from high school, he pursued a degree in aeronautical engineering at Purdue University. He dropped out to care for his ailing wife.

Intrigued By Cancer

Back in Indianapolis, Crooke found work in a drug store. His boss, a pharmacist, was a kind man. He loaned him $300 to pay for his tuition at Butler University’s pharmacy school.

There, Crooke became interested in cancer. He felt in order to gain a profound understanding of it, he needed an M.D. and a Ph.D. So, in 1968, at age 23, Crooke enrolled at Baylor College in Houston to pursue both.

In 1969, his only child, Evan, was born. His mother died in her 30s.

As Crooke marched into fatherhood, a scientist/medical doctor by the name of Dr. Harris Busch became a father figure to him.

Crooke says Busch instilled in him the belief of never lowering your standards and always striving for excellence. These fundamental lessons served him well. But Crooke says it lacked the element of “nurture,” which he added.

“Busch was a tough cookie he’s now mellow in his 70s and people think of him as a grandfatherly type, but this was an environment where you worked or else,” Crooke recalls.

Busch was disappointed when Crooke told him he would pursue a career in industry, a move then considered a dead-end for young, bright scientists.

Crooke joined Bristol Laboratories (now Bristol Myers Squibb) in 1975 to study their new cancer drug, Bleomycine.

At Bristol, Crooke became instrumental in developing and selling nine cancer drugs.

He left in 1980 to head SmithKline’s (now Glaxo SmithKline) R & D; unit in Philadelphia.

Faced By Challenges

John Cogan, an analyst for Daiwa Securities in New York City who worked at SmithKline during the 1980s, credits Crooke for strengthening their pipeline of drugs.

“Dr. Crooke was vigorous, charismatic, brilliant and a no-nonsense (person who was) determined to change things,” Cogan recalls. But the company faced rocky times.

In 1988, analysts said SmithKline’s problems stemmed from a lack of new drugs to compensate for declining sales of its blockbuster drug, Tegamet, and that the company was on the verge of being sold.

Crooke says he first heard about antisense during a seminar in 1987.

The technology sounded intriguing despite the lack of evidence that it would work. Crooke knew that the pharmaceutical culture would be skeptical of such a risky and unproven concept as antisense.

“I felt to make this work, we would first have to have a relatively high level of desperation,” he says. “You have to couple that with experience and integrity.”

Christopher Gabrieli, a young venture capitalist at Bessemer Venture Partners in San Francisco with a taste for unconventional ideas, helped Crooke get started in 1988.

Gabrieli still remembers kicking around ideas with Crooke before settling on antisense and how he sent Crooke off to write a business plan. It took Crooke three days to produce it.

“It (the business plan) wasn’t perfect,” Gabrieli remembers, but a stunning achievement given the 72-hour turnaround.

In 1988, Crooke resigned from SmithKline to head Isis.

He was joined by two former SmithKline scientists, David Ecker, who now heads Isis’ Ibis Therapeutics unit, and Chris Mirabelli, who has since left to start another firm.

In the last 13 years, Isis has grown to 450 staff members and won Food and Drug Administration approval for Vitravene, an injectable eye drug for AIDS patients.

He expects to file for regulatory approval of Isis’ and Lilly’s lung cancer drug in 2003.

Crooke says when he’s not at work, he spends time with his wife of 16 years, Rosanne, and his son, Evan, now an independent filmmaker.

His ultimate goal is to turn Isis into a fully integrated pharmaceutical firm.

Vasquez shares Crooke’s dream.

“There are still a lot of things I need to learn,” he says. “But I like the atmosphere in the lab and I enjoy working here. I will stay at Isis as long as they will let me stay here.”


SNAPSHOT: Stanley Crooke

Position: CEO and chairman of Isis Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Education: B.S. (1966) Pharmacy , Butler University, Indianapolis; Ph.D. (1971) Baylor College of Medicine, Houston; M.D. (1974) Baylor College of Medicine, Houston.

Age: 57

Born: Indianapolis

Family: Wife Rosanne; son Evan

Hobbies: Hiking, basketball, playing chess

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